‘I was just thrilled to be in front of a true singer-songwriter’ — David Broza formed an instant bond with legendary Americana figure Townes Van Zandt.
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It’s been said a million times that music is the universal language, but every now and then something reminds us that this is much more than just some pale cliché. One such sterling reminder is Playing for Change, a series of videos that unite artists around the globe over a single song. The PFC video for Bob Marley’s “War/ No More Trouble” began, quite literally, with a knock on the door of singer-songwriter David Broza’s Tel Aviv home.
“I was really surprised. I opened the door and there was a [film] crew,” Broza recounts. “They walked in the house and I said, ‘What do you want me to do?’ They said, ‘Can you play a Marley song?’”
From Broza’s crisp, syncopated flamenco guitar intro, “War” leaps across continents and cultures as musicians in a dozen countries underscore the impassioned vocals of Rocky Dawuni in Ghana, Bono Vox in Ireland and Marley himself, in archival footage. It’s moved more than a few people to tears. “I do so many of these projects that, in the end, nothing happens with them,” Broza says. “This was a big surprise and it was beautiful, and today, I don’t know how many people have seen it but it’s quite a few millions.”
Broza’s newest project, Night Dawn: The Unpublished Poetry of Townes Van Zandt, is similarly global and pan-cultural. Broza and Americana legend Van Zandt crossed paths at a Writers in the Round concert in Houston in 1994. Their connection was immediate and intense.
“We were complete strangers to each other,” Broza says. “I knew a little bit about Townes but he knew less than a little about me. Slowly it became evident that Townes and I were taking over the scene and it became like our show. We were so excited by each other.” For four hours, under audience scrutiny, the two musicians bonded over music and poetry. Broza is well-known for translating the work of famous poets into passionate song form. “I guess it just captured his attention and at the end of this he said, ‘Call me, let’s work together, let’s write together. I’ve got some poetry, too.’”
Tragically, Van Zandt passed away on New Year’s Day of 1997, at the age of 52, following years of hard living. A couple of days later, Broza got word that Van Zandt had left behind a box of poems that he hoped Broza would set to music. Broza met Van Zandt’s widow, Jeanene, in New York and bowed to her wish to approach some of her husband’s higher-profile colleagues, like Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson, first.
“Eight years later, I was in Texas and suddenly it came back to me and I thought I would call her up and see what happened,” he says. “She answered the phone and she remembered our meeting and she said nothing had happened. I suggested I come to Nashville and she said, ‘Don’t bother, just let me email them to you.’”
Over the next four years, Broza worked hard to meticulously craft the 12 songs that comprise the new album, including the song “Jeanene” and “Too Old to Die Young,” an instrumental Broza composed in tribute. “I call it Country and West Bank Music,” he says with a slight laugh. “My little perception of how far we go in mixing the East and the West together as one.”
Broza has little interest in dissecting and resurrecting the renegade outlaw mythology that swirls around Van Zandt’s legacy. “All I could say is the man that I met was a great musician, a great artist who left a phenomenal, really deep impression on me and I never tried to read up on him or listen to stories about him, because I was just thrilled to be in front of a true singer-songwriter,” he says. “What matters to me is the artist.”
Braza readily acknowledges his outsider perspective and admits to being far more concerned with capturing Van Zandt’s spirit than his style or sound. “My whole journey into America was exactly in search for that,” he explains. “For the confrontation and meeting the force of the great music that is affecting and is influencing and entertaining so many millions around the world, that don’t have any clue where the great writers come from. I came to search and find it, and by being with Townes, that’s all I found.”
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